


roots in my dreamland (my house of stone, your ivy grows)

by safeandsound13



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Actress!Clarke, Celebrity AU, Christmas, Doppelganger, F/M, Teacher!Bellamy, cover-up kiss, first snow, one character is a dancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:41:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27786178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safeandsound13/pseuds/safeandsound13
Summary: Clarke really wants it to work out with Bellamy, but as an A-list Hollywood actress there's a lot of contractual obligations she can hide behind instead of confronting her own insecurities and past mistakes. Luckily, this Christmas she's lucked out, and her stand-in Josie is more than willing to (completely selflessly of course) take her place.Now comes the hard part.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Josephine Lightbourne/Gabriel Santiago | Xavier
Comments: 36
Kudos: 117
Collections: TROPED: Holiday Trope Exchange 2.0





	roots in my dreamland (my house of stone, your ivy grows)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thelittlefanpire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlefanpire/gifts).



> the tropes i got:  
> -doppelgängers  
> -one character is a dancer  
> -first snow  
> -kissing to keep a cover/a secret
> 
> i struggled with this one, ngl, but i hope you like it regardless, beloved. everything's been hell, and the 100 is in the top three of reasons why. at least it's finally over. may 2021 be heaps better than this year's spin around the ball of fire. cheers!
> 
> song in title is ivy by taylor swift. its out of the context of the overall song, yet still making points. cant believe taylor swift streamed the bellamy diaries at one point. crazy, innit?

Clarke is a comedy actress. Not by choice, but by the refusal of any casting directors to even consider her for anything but. She’s blonde and has a big rack, and apparently that makes her incapable of bringing any emotional vulnerability to the big screen.

For most of her career, she’s been completely fine with it. Drawing experience from her own deepest inner emotions in front of hundreds of crew members to get the crocodile tears running all in the hope of winning an Oscar and her mother’s validation has never really seemed like her idea of a good time. 

Besides, being classically trained thanks to her Hollywood royalty parents, comedy was hard for her. It still continues to be to this day and Clarke loves the challenge, loves constantly pushing herself and working on her timing, or delivery, or subtlety. If she was going to be branded a ‘mere’ comedy actress, she was going to be the best damn one there ever was. 

What Clarke _doesn’t_ love is random strangers she doesn’t know having an opinion about her and prying into her personal life and blowing up clickbait headlines like ‘Clarke Griffin Daddy’s Girl No Longer’ on the day of her father’s funeral while in the same paragraph implying she’s aging like spoilt milk because the pictures of her grieving her dad weren’t so ‘hot girl shit’. 

And doing reshoots in the middle of hundred degree California weather, wearing a thick winter coat and being surrounded by fake snow. Clarke really hates doing reshoots in late October. 

It’s not that Clarke has gotten to the point she’s done acting. She’s just done being chased by grown men with cameras, hackers failing to leak her nudes thus just photoshopping her head onto cows as some kind of revenge, and insecure fangirls writing entire manifestos on nepotism in her instagram comment section because she laughed too hard at their favorite celebrity’s joke at that one public event one time. 

Losing her dad, she was fine. She knew the public could be cruel because of what happened with Finn way back when she was just starting out in the business; didn’t even really feel anything when she saw people making memes out of her ‘ _ugly crying face_ ’ at his burial; smiled politely at interviewers bringing up his death in between asking about her colorist and ideal first date like they were simply discussing the weather; and managed to completely ignore the think pieces people wrote on how she might be an actual sociopath after she dared to be caught on camera smiling just two weeks after his funeral. Losing Wells, she tried to keep moving, tried to keep that same energy, but it’s been hard. To make sense of anything lately. To keep from landing in a bit of a spiral. The downwards kind.

What helped was starting to see this completely, utterly, nothing but _normal_ guy while filming a mini series in a small town in Minnesota over the past summer. A guy who didn’t ask her “ _the_ Clarke Griffin?” after she introduced herself to him in a crowded little dive bar on the edge of town, but instead told her, “I bet you one kiss you can’t beat me at pool”. He then proceeded to be a horribly sore loser for the rest of the night until she pressed him up against the wall of the alley behind the bar and made good on her reward. A guy who teaches History to a bunch of middle schoolers with _joy,_ makes the crossword puzzle in his local newspaper’s every morning, unashamedly listens _and_ sings along to Shania Twain, invites his mother over for dinner _every_ Sunday, built every piece of furniture in his house by himself, and named his dog after a Greek God. Or Roman — she really should work on listening to him while he talks instead of staring at his mouth the entire time.

The guy who made her feel like Just Clarke, who somehow ended up learning more about her in seven weeks than some of the people she’s known for most of her adult life, who both made her feel a little less crazy every day she spent with him and at the same time drove her absolutely insane. The guy she’s been completely blowing off, convincing herself the long distance thing could never work, that, hell, a relationship with _her_ could never work. 

And the guy who’s, for the better part of her lunch break, last text message she’s been staring at. 

**Bellamy [07:18 PM]**

_I bet you can’t make a snowman as cool as mine_

Well, that, and the picture attached to it, because for some reason he still uses texts as his primary mode of communication, and not snapchat or instagram like a normal person. It’s not just that he’s unfairly hot. It’s the snowflakes in his partly beanie covered curls. The tip of his nose that’s slightly more red than the rest of his smiling face. The proud gesture at the horrifically wonky snowman that seems to come straight from her darkest of nightmares. Something pangs deep and painful in her chest the longer she looks at it, not the sharp kind of pain that comes in flashes at the memory of what she’s lost, but something more dull and insistent reminding her of what she wants. _Longing_.

“What’s up, loser?” Josie asks her in lieu of a greeting — in the poshest of British accents even though the girl was born and raised in rural Massachusetts and only did one semester abroad in the UK — taking a noisy slurp of her iced coffee as she slides into the director’s chair beside Clarke, continuing to scroll down on her phone. The clunky rings around her perfectly manicured fingers make every tap ring through the tent. 

Josie’s been her stand-in in most of her movies for the better part of the last decade as a favor to Clarke’s manager Russell. Apparently ‘social influencer’ didn’t hold up to the occupation requirement of her probation, nor did listing herself as a ‘dancer’ whose primary source of revenue is TikTok. Shoplifting or attempted murder or maybe even both, Clarke’s still not entirely sure. She’s also never going to ask. Josie is fine from a distance, but she feels no internal desire to get closer to her whatsoever. 

“Nothing,” Clarke answers nonchalantly, flipping the page of the script in her lap for her own sanity’s sake. She’s read the same sentence twelve times without registering what it says, because she just keeps unlocking her phone and gazing at the picture. It´’s pathetic. She’s twenty-six. Don’t you grow out of gazing forlornly once you leave your early twenties?

“Then what’s with the mopey face, sister?” She presses, scrunching up her nose as she places her iced coffee in the cup holder attached to her chair. Josie is wearing the exact same winter coat as her, but somehow it looks much more elegant on her. “It’s making me depressed and I’m already maxed out on Lexapro.”

It’s not about Bellamy specifically, she tells herself. There’s just lots of things she wants and can’t have for a multitude of varying reasons. It’s not about him but it has something to do with him and she doesn’t want Josie to think it’s about him and make a big deal out of it. She can sniff out lies like a bloodhound, and it’s not a lie but it’s also not the whole truth, so Clarke goes with the easiest part of the equation. “Do you know I’ve never seen real snow?” 

Growing up in LA. Her parents never having time for any vacations, always on opposite schedules. She was planning to go to Aspen with Wells but then—then nothing. She thinks she has a good idea of what snow’s like, and obviously she’s encountered the fake kind on set before, but it’s true all the same. She’s twenty-six, and she’s never seen snow. 

She gives her an unimpressed once-over, twirling her long hair around her finger. “You’ve never been skiing?”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “No, Josie. I’ve never been skiing.”

Her face hardens, chastising her as if she’s personally affected by Clarke’s dreams being invaded by someone who might as well be a stranger at this point, someone she’s been apart from longer than she’s known him. “Don’t tell me you’re still hung up on that cowboy from last summer. It’s been literal months.”

“It’s been two months and I’m not hung up on him,” Clarke snaps back, immediately defensive for no good reason. She just doesn’t like insinuation of it all, like she’s some kind of weak little sheep, chasing after ghosts. After a long second, she lifts one of her shoulders half-heartedly, her voice hardly sounding like her own, “We just still text. Sometimes.” 

“ _Babe._ He wasn’t even that hot,” Josie complains, as if that’s the most important clue of Clarke’s perils heres, then bites her lip, pointing her forefinger in Clarke’s direction as a playful moan slips from her pouty lips. “That one friend of his however…”

Sometimes looking at Josie is like looking in a mirror. Safe from the missing beauty mark above her lip and the slightly darker hair, they could be twins. Clarke’s even jokingly asked her parents about it over Thanksgiving once upon a time, which wasn’t all too well received. Implying she might be fathered by Russell, still hot on the tails of her mother’s ‘alleged’ cheating scandal with her latest director Marcus Kane, maybe wasn’t the right direction to take after what had already been a more than frosty evening. She left that for what it was.

Then Josie parallel parks on her first try without even blinking twice, argues with a Reddit troll over the finer workings of gentically modified organisms entirely in French, or is attracted to the Echo Olwyns and John Murphys over the Raven Reyes’ and Bellamy Blakes, and Clarke is yet again reminded that there’s no fucking way they ever shared a womb. They’re not even on the same wavelength, let alone they’re on the same strain of DNA.

Clarke tosses her script aside on the small table beside her chair, figuring it’s no use anyway, sighing tiredly as she rubs her temples in hope of releasing the tension building steadfast behind her eyes. Murphy—Bellamy’s friend at the bar—caught her stand-ins attention for reasons entirely unbeknownst to her. “I’m not giving you his number.”

“Fine, whatever,” she pouts, dramatically, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “So what’s the big deal then?”

Clarke hesitates. It’s hard to make friends in this business. Wells was her best friend, and she could talk to him about anything and absolutely nothing, but he’s dead. And Raven — well, they have some kind of unspoken agreement to never mention each other’s love lives because of what happened with Finn. There’s Monty, the tech guy from set she befriended years back, but he’s happily married and she feels like he won’t give her the advice she _wants_. It’ll be all positive, and tainted by his rose-tinted glasses, and all ‘just go for it, Clarke, what do you have to lose?’. What the hell is she supposed to do then?

Josie is truly her best bet, so she flips around her phone, showing her the picture. She’ll probably help her back down to earth. The other girl studies it, before slowly raising an eyebrow. So much judgement in just one movement of her face. “This is it? This is what has you all 2006 Scene Girl?” She falls back in her chair, stretching her arms lazily above her head. “You have seriously not gotten laid in way too long.”

Clarke teeth sink in her bottom lip as she allows herself one more glance before locking her phone and putting it face down on top of her script. “He’s been asking me about visiting him over Christmas.”

“Yikes,” she comments, her face scrunching up in disgust as she picks her own phone back up, opening the camera to fix her make-up. “It’s 2020. Can’t he just ask for a faceless nude as a souvenir and move on? He’s had his five minutes of fame and collected all the right ingredients for his near future grandchildren’s bedtime stories by fucking a Hollywood star for a hot second, it’s kinda desperate to keep clinging onto it.”

This is better, Clarke convinces herself. She doesn’t need to be hearing reaffirmations from people that it might work out. That she could go and give it a shot—a true honest shot—and still be okay if it doesn’t work out. That it wouldn’t be absolutely crazy to drop her entire life and go see him for the holidays. This is good. 

A tense silence falls between them until Josie locks her phone after a last tussle of her hair, dragging her eyes back up to Clarke. A long, drawn out weary sigh slips from her lips, as if it pains her to continue this line of conversation. “But you want to,” Josie says, obviously trying to do her best to sound sympathetic, which obviously does not come natural.

“I can’t.” Clarke shakes her head, mostly to herself. It’s not like her friend is the one who needs to be talked out of it. “They’re rushing these reshoots so they throw that big premiere on the 26th.” Because that sounds weak, even to herself, she adds, “It’s in my contract.” 

She snorts, but in sort of an attractive way Clarke didn’t think was possible. “Aren’t you the girl who went on Ellen and told that hag “ _fuck my contract_ ” when she basically forced you to talk shit about that lovely director Jasper Jordan for relapsing and going to rehab?”

“That’s different,” she brushes her off, easy. That was for him. This would be for her. 

Josie’s eyes narrow, suspiciously. “Didn’t you punch that pap’s window in because he asked if being gay was contagious after your lady friend Monroe came out?”

Clarke shrugs, annoyance starting to prickle beneath her skin at the memory, at whatever the hell kind of point Josie is trying to make. “They were my friends. And I hate biphobes.”

“And Bellamy is what? A figment of your imagination?” She retorts evenly, sending her a pointed look as her brows furrow together. “What’s the real reason here?”

“I like him,” she starts, not sure where to go from there. It’s an innocent enough statement. She likes and has liked a lot of people, she’s sure she’ll like many more in her life. But the memory of people she’s liked, any of the people she likes right now, nor the prospect of people she’ll possibly like in her lifetime—none of them frighten her like this. None of them make her second guess herself like this to the point she can’t even tell someone who’s not even really her friend, this person completely detached from her life and from common reality, who won’t care if Clarke appears weak or strong or anything in between. “But we’re so different. My life is—insane. I’m afraid to pull him into all of that. I’m afraid I might go there and never want to leave.” She takes in a shaky breath, fingernails biting into her palm sharply. “And even all of that aside, I fucking suck at relationships. All I do is hurt the people I lo—like.”

The blast radius of her and Finn’s relationship reached more than just the two of them, Niylah still won’t speak to her and Lexa—God, that was a failure of such epic proportions on both ends people still comment on her pictures with biphobic slurs to this day for breaking her ex-girlfriend’s heart, even though it’s been two years and Lexa broke hers first. 

“Nice save,” Josie comments, sarcasm dripping from her melodic voice. She blows a raspberry, flicking her eyes up to the ceiling. “And you _know_ I hate insecure bitches.” She leans over, supportingly grasping Clarke by both shoulders, shaking her as if it’ll put some common sense into her. She treats this like her Friday Night Lights finale moment, a heavy weight to every single one of her words. “He would be lucky to get hurt by you, Clarke Griffin. Hell, if you didn’t look like you were separated from me at birth, _I’d_ love to be ruined by you.” The corner of her mouth quirks up teasingly, throwing her a wink. “Maybe I still do.”

Clarke groans softly, deflating. “Jose..”

“I’m not saying sorry for finding myself attractive. I am,” she insists, giving her one last shove before pulling her hands back into her lap, using one of them to gesture at her repeatedly while he talks. “All I’m saying is — even if it all blows up in your face, and both of you are scarred forever, and you never get over his loser ass, at least you gave it a shot instead of chickening out like the little bitch baby you’re being right now.”

Clarke just ends up rolling her eyes, flipping her off half-heartedly. “Thanks for the pep-talk.”

“Although he’s not my personal taste, even I have to admit the chemistry was banging.” She smirks like the cat that got the canary, slow and deliberate. “And his dick must be huge because I haven’t seen you smile like that in years.”

“Jesus Christ,” she curses, feeling her cheeks heat as she covers her face with one of her hands. She is sincerely hoping none of the crewmembers are close enough to overhear just any part of this conversation.

“It’s fucking Christmas, darling,” Josie argues, lifting her shoulders and pursing her lips. “At least leave it on better terms then a pathetic fizzle out over text.” She raises her brows, a challenge in her eyes. “People don’t write songs about those kinds of break-ups.”

“No one will be writing any songs because your dad will murder me if I don’t show up to that premiere.” She waves her off, reaching for her script again even if it’s just to pretend. “Besides, me and Gabriel made a pact to help each other avoid that crazy E! Online intervi—”

This seems to pique Josie’s interest finally. She sits up, shoulders straight, raising her eyebrows at Clarke. “If that’s the problem it’s easily solved.” Her eyes brighten, her mouth twitching as if holding back a victorious smile. “How about you and I make a deal?”

Warily, Clarke freezes. “A deal?”

The other girl shrugs casually, as if she’s merely stating the obvious. “I’ll go for a trim and skip a few hair masks to achieve your deep fried noodle look, and then I could totally pass at you at that silly little premiere.” Her voice grows more excited and somehow less British by the second. “I’m a superb actress, I mean, if I didn’t have such a successful career in dancing I could’ve totally beat your PCA record by now. Not even my dad will notice a thing.”

Implying that a few viral TikTok dance videos qualify as a career is the least of the things completely wrong with whatever the hell she’s saying. Clarke narrows her blue eyes. She knows exactly what this is about. This isn’t some selfless act on Josie’s part. It never is. “You know he said he would get a restraining order next time.”

“Please,” she scoffs, crossing her legs and then uncrossing them again, sitting up instead. “You and I both know Gabe’s just playing hard to get.” A huff of mirthless laughter spills from her lips, shaking her head lightly. “His last album reeks of Josephine Lightbourne. He’s obsessed with me.”

Triple threat Gabriel Santiago. Clarke’s co-star and Josie’s self-proclaimed soulmate and love of her life. Poor unfortunate soul. “I do think one of you is obsessed but it’s not him,” she mumbles quietly but purposely loud enough for her stand-in to hear, pretending to be occupied with her script. She’s not even going to entertain the idea. 

“Clarke,” she opposes, as if the name leaves a foul taste in her mouth. “You know you want to see Baloney.”

Her eyebrows jump briefly as she flips the page, refusing to make eye-contact. She desperately needs this conversation to be over. “At least that’s a step up from Beachball. Your insults are getting better.”

“Don’t tell me you actually think moaning Bellamy during sex is better than either of those two options,” Josie points out, so easily distracted. Clarke actually likes his name. It’s cute. “That’s embarrassing, sis.”

She laughs, shaking her head lightly. “It just seems to me like there’s more in this for you than for me.”

“Seems like a win/win to me. Doesn’t charity get you all hot and bothered, Miss Unicef Ambassador?”

“Yeah, making Gabriel deal with you so I can go fuck a guy I haven’t seen in two months is a completely altruistic deed.”

“Don’t forget to name drop me in your Nobel Prize of Peace acceptance speech.”

“I’ll link your TikTok in my celebratory tweet, okay?”

Josie cocks one of her brows, fingers wrapping around Clarke’s wrist as a smile slowly spreads across her lips. “Is that a yes?”

She hesitates, searching her stand-in’s face. This conversation was supposed to take an entirely different turn, but it hasn’t, and now there’s an actual possibility she could go without disappointing anyone, and— and try. Doesn’t she at least owe him that? Hell, doesn’t she owe herself that?

Reluctantly, she tells her, “It’s a ‘I’ll buy a plane ticket but it’s a secret and I reserve the right to chicken out until the day of my flight’.”

Josie lets out an excited squeak, leaning over to hug her tightly before letting out a gasp, propelling herself back into her own chair. “Fuck, I literally just maxed out my platinum. I _need_ to be wearing a custom Elie Saab to that premiere.” Her voice full of honest to God despair, she orders, “Siri, call daddy.”

“Calling Gabriel Santiago Red Heart,” her pink phone pipes up robotically. “Sweat Droplets Eggplant Hot Face Tong—”

Clarke groans, covering her face as if that’ll help tune out the sound of Siri’s voice, but Josie seems as unphased as two seconds ago, just cancelling the call and scrolling down to select her father’s name herself. “Not _that_ daddy,” she says, emphatically, pursing her mouth.

She shakes her head, giving her friend a look full of disbelief. “You have no shame.”

Josie puts the phone on speaker, already typing out an email to her stylist. “You’re scamming the entirety of Hollywood and their pathetic cult-following to be a slut across the country — neither do you, hun.”

* * *

November’s never been such a long month. The days drag on and on and Clarke tries desperately to tiptoe the line between staying in contact with Bellamy and trying to keep her distance from him, definitely avoiding the topic of Christmas all together. 

Clarke’s never been much of a holiday person. As a little girl she got everything she wanted, but then as she grew older she started to realize the presents were trying to make up for things she never had during the rest of the year. She wouldn’t go so far to call it neglect, but at certain times in her life Clarke was raised by a variation of her parents PAs, audio books and teleshop channels. Over time, she got good at being alone. Celebrating Christmas with family felt more like a duty when it just seemed like they were all putting on a performance the entire time, avoiding talking about sore subjects or subjects that could lead into aforementioned sore subjects and scrambling to make small talk last through the whole night. All in all it was just one big exhausting experience that left her feeling overstimulated for days after. 

She hasn’t genuinely looked forward to Christmas in years. So it’s kind of weird, now, to be doing just that. 

He calls her, on Thanksgiving. She’s shoving her store-bought mashed potatoes in Monty and Harper’s oven, laughter mixed with Christmas carols in the background as her friends deck the table. Clarke presses the phone in between her shoulder and ear after she accepts, stirring the cranberry sauce Roan made from scratch as it heats on the stove.

“Happy Turkey Day,” Bellamy greets, voice a little scratchy but so deep, and so good. She’s missed him.

“You too,” she returns, suppressing a smile in case any of her friends happens to walk in. She’s the only single one at this point, so she’ll never live that down before NYE comes around. “Are you at your moms?”

He scrapes his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “My sister actually.”

“Oh,” Clarke says, a little stunned and a bit worried. Last time he mentioned his sister to her he said he might as well be dead to her, the time before that his tears left a wet patch on her shoulder. She’s trying not to sound too judgemental, knowing she doesn’t have the right. Some of it seeps through anyway. “That’s new.”

There’s the sound of some sort of sliding door closing before he speaks again. “She met this guy and, uh, he took her to an AA meeting.” He takes a sharp breath, brushing it off like always, “It was part of her twelve steps to apologize or whatever. So, here I am.”

 _Or whatever._ It’s not whatever, and they both know it. It’s not the time nor the place to discuss it, the subject entirely too loaded, and they both know that too, so instead she deflates, softly pressing, “Are you okay?”

There’s a small pause where he seems to consider it before he answers, genuine, “I think I am actually.”

Relief floods her system. “Okay. Good.” She smiles anyway, unable to help herself, happy to hear that even if things might not be perfect, and she can’t be there for him in the way she’d like to be, he’s doing fine. 

“How about you?” Bellamy insists, ever so eager to change the subject when they’re talking about him. A teasing spark returns to his voice, “Have your friends figured out you’re a fraud yet?”

A laugh escapes her throat, and she dims the fire underneath the cranberry sauce, lifting the wooden spoon from the pan and dipping her pinky finger in it. It’s hot enough. “If they have they won’t mention it. They know I grew up with chefs at my house and that I live off take-out.”

“You’re basically saving their lives,” he jokes, dry. 

“Right,” Clarke agrees, just as deadpan, dumping the contents of the saucepan in a glass bowl. “They should be thanking me. Isn’t Thanksgiving all about gratuity?”

“That’s what people say.” There’s a small lull in the conversation, her smile only starting to fade when he sighs a little. “My sister invited a girl from her programme. I think she’s trying to set me up.”

A flare of annoyance rises up in her, and she tells herself it’s just friendly worry, some misplaced anger on his behalf. She scoffs, brows furrowing together. “Bold move. She hasn’t spoken to you in years. How does she even know what you like?”

Bellamy lets out a light chuckle, and the grin in his voice is visible even through a phone. “My type is pretty basic.”

Instead of making it seem like she has all these insecurities and more feelings than she knows what to do with, she tries to turn it into a joke. It’s what they do. Comic relief, basically what she’s paid for on a daily basis. “Okay, so you’re a slut is what you’re saying?”

He ignores her, listing, “Blonde, too smart for her own good, gorgeous, incredibly annoying, has more than six million Twitter followers.”

A stupid fucking smile slips through the cracks, her heart humming with satisfaction. She’s more gone on him than she’d initially thought. Also, she was a little jealous just now. “I bet you know a bunch of girls like that.”

“Tons.”

“And this is how I find out?” 

Bellamy laughs, the sound setting off an intense feeling of yearning in the pit of her stomach, so intense it stuns her for a moment until she breathes through it. It lingers there in the background, even as she joins his laughter, poking fun at their combined stupidity. When he speaks next, she realizes maybe it set off something like that for him too. “I didn’t know if you knew but, uhm.” There’s a scrape of his throat. “I miss you.”

Clarke swallows, her breaths coming in shallow and fast as she leans back against the counter, grip of her free hand tight around the edge. 

“I—” She starts, finally, but loses her courage on the first syllable. All her past mistakes flash through her mind. _The fury in Finn’s eyes as he called her cold and distant. Niylah’s disappointed voice saying she was too exhausting to love. Lexa treating their relationship like a business transaction, the blank look on her face as she told her she shouldn’t let everyone in, that in the end she would just get hurt._ How in the end she did. Clarke closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, focusing on Jordan’s happy giggles down the hallway, the smell of cinnamon and cranberry in the air around her. _Wells, his hand on her shoulder, squeezing. ‘Your life can be so much more than what you’re allowing it to be because you’re scared of what might happen if you do’._ She thinks her voice is actually shaking as she says, “I miss you too.”

There’s a small sigh of relief on the other end of the line, and then he nonchalantly drops, “You know, I bet that you’ll enjoy spending Christmas here.”

She releases her death grip on the counter, allowing herself to relax her shoulders as the corner of her mouth turns up. “You know that line won’t work on me forever, right?”

“It was worth a shot.”

After a second of hesitation, a second of missing being near him, a second of forgetting the dangers of being weak, she relents, softly, “I’ll think about it, okay?”

There’s some commotion on the other end of the line, Bellamy’s voice sounding muffled as he talks to someone before he cuts back in, apologetic, “I have to go. Dessert is ready.”

“Okay,” she acknowledges, unable to form any more words, noticing a strange switch in the atmosphere surrounding her, like they’re on the precipice of something neither of them can name.

Another moment of static before he blurts out, “Clarke—”

She doesn’t need to see him to know what he wants to say, and she doesn’t need to hear it to know it to be true. She just wants to — be able to deny it to herself a little longer. November’s been long, but it’s not December yet, and there’s still so much that could change. There’s still so much work to be done. She wants to be at that point too, wants to be able to say it back, to mean it as much as he does. She thinks he deserves that.

“Don’t,” Clarke breathes, closing her eyes briefly. “Please,” she squeaks out. It’s too much. 

There’s a tense second of silence before he finally says, “I’ll text you.”

They say their goodbyes, and she can hear the disappointment in his voice, the doubt lingering there, and she wishes she could reassure him, but she can hardly reassure herself at this point. She just knows she misses him, and that she wants to see him, and that he is a normal guy, that he is a good man. That he is her friend, one of her best, and that even if she can’t trust herself, she can trust _him_. 

In that moment, Clarke makes up her mind, scrolling down her phone to find Gabriel’s number.

_Hey just a heads up. Josie is gonna be going to klaustophobia’s premiere._

_As in she will be pretending to be me._

_Princess switch style_

_Lol?_

**GABE! [06:33 PM]**

_That’s all you’re gonna give me?_

_It’s for this thing_

**GABE! [06:36 PM]**

_A Bellamy thing?_

_Sometimes you scare me_

**GABE! [06:38 PM]**

_…_

_Me and Josie text sometimes_

_Weird way of announcing you’re suicidal_

**GABE! [06:41 PM]**

_She scares me, but in a good way_

_You know?_

Clarke sighs, tapping the phone to her chin a few times before allowing herself to type out a message. She can’t believe individual experiences can somehow be part of such an universal feeling.

_Guess I kind of do_

**GABE! [06:41 PM]**

_Besides_

_If anything it’s good entertainment_

_It’s kinda funny to see her get frustrated by someone simply telling her no_

_And cute_

_And really hot_

_Simp alert_

**GABE! [06:48 PM]**

_Don’t even start with me, Clarke Griffin_

_I don’t need a degree in psychology to tell you you’re projecting_

_But I do have a degree in psychology_

_So I’m telling you_

_You’re projecting_

_That’s what every simp says_

Clarke pulls up Bellamy’s name next, just for good measure. And because she wants to sleep tonight.

_So_

_To clarify this girl Octavia brought isn’t blonde, too smart for her own good, gorgeous, incredibly annoying or the owner of a twitter account with more than a humble six million followers, right?_

**Bellamy [06:56 PM]**

_She’s a brunette_

_Nice_

_I’ll send you a sexy pic later_

_As a reward ;)_

**Bellamy [07:01 PM]**

_Is jealousy seriously a turn on for you?_

_You don’t want one then?_

**Bellamy [06:56 PM]**

_Already making up excuses to leave before midnight_

_Now what’s the fun in that?_

So much for tiptoeing. 

* * *

The flight’s only three and a half hours, and for half of it’s spent by Josie sending her full blown and overly detailed Get Ready With Me vlogs. Once the _‘body-ody-ody-ody_ ’ and ‘ _doing hot girl shit’_ videos in expensive designer dresses and over-exuberant make-up start rolling in, Clarke pretends she fell asleep. 

It’s not like Clarke went full Hannah Montana before leaving for her trip, but she is trying to be discreet as possible about all of this. If news gets out that she had someone else — let alone TikTok queen and former criminal Josephine Lightbourne, hello mugshots plastered all over TMZ — stand-in as herself at her own movie premiere, she will never live it down. She flew from the LGB airport in Long Beach instead of the usual LAX to avoid any paps, is wearing her dad’s old sweatshirt, yoga pants and a baseball cap, and happily left her usual entourage of bodyguards and PAs at home. 

The worst part is he still doesn’t even know she’s coming, which — surprise holiday visit — is about as romantic as Clarke can get. She’s not really the affectionate, present-bearing, speech giving kind of person — he is. So hopefully he’ll say _something_ or the only alternative able in this scenario is her just jumping him to avoid talking about her feelings and continue to cop out until she has to leave and they’re back right where they started. Unresolved. Seems more likely than you’d think. 

The bag retrieval takes entirely too long, she almost freezes to death trying to find a taxi and it’s near dusk when her ride finally pulls up to his neighbourhood. The snow was mostly dirty brown sludge around the airport, but it seems there’s been a fresh snowfall recently because it’s left untouched all around his house. 

It takes a while for her driver to help her take her bag out of the trunk, mostly because Clarke tries first herself, but is unable to find her footing and nearly breaks her neck three times. The guy seems to be fearful of a lawsuit, because he directs her onto the snow covered grass instead of the ice-like sidewalk, motioning for her to wait. By the time he finally drives off, her bag safely beside her feet, Bellamy must have noticed someone was loitering in front of his house and has come outside to check it out. Small town stuff, she figures. 

“Clarke?”

Since she’s still a little afraid to wander onto the stone path leading up to his porch she just turns, giving him kind of an awkward wave. “Merry Christmas?”

He’s smiling like an idiot as he starts moving down the steps of his porch, heading straight for her. “You take these bets pretty seriously, huh?”

Her face is mirroring his exact expression, so she’s not entirely sure who she’s trying to call the idiot here, her feet slowly starting to move toward him. It’s a glacial pace, but it’s something. “I’d said they’d stop working someday.”

Suddenly he’s in front of her, in his stupid worn out flannel, face unshaven and hair unkept. Bellamy’s brown eyes gleam with something familiar. “I’m glad it’s not today.”

“Me too,” Clarke breathes a little pathetically, the words coming out with small white puffs of air before she finally allows herself to fall forward in his arms. He doesn’t seem to share her same fear of slipping, picking her up easily and twirling her around. Her thighs tighten around his waist, burying her laughter in his neck. He smells like laundry detergent and hot chocolate and something so very him. She’s losing her mind and putting it back together at the same time.

After what feels like an entirely too short moment in time, he carefully puts her back down, placing a strand of hair behind her ear as he searches her face, disbelief still written all over his own. “So what do you think?’

“I’d give it a solid nine/ten,” she starts, hugging her arms around her body, the air somehow even colder now she’s not in his arms and feeling his body heat all around her. “One of our better hugs for sure. I like it when you squeeze me.”

“I meant the snow.” He smirks, and it only widens in the worst of ways as he watches her cheek heat, tapping her red nose teasingly. “Thank God you’re pretty.”

Clarke can give it out just as good, though, so she easily throws back, “I think you mean _gorgeous_.”

He moves so fast she can hardly tell what he’s doing before she’s gasping as something cold and wet slaps against the bottom of her jaw, seeping past her coat and down the collar of her sweatshirt in the worst of ways. A chill runs down her back as her entire body literally and figuratively freezes up. “I fucking hate you.”

Bellamy’s somehow still smiling, wiping his hands on the back of his jeans. “Hate me so bad you flew all the way over here to rate my hugs on Christmas.”

She rolls her eyes, the words slipping from her mouth before she can second-guess even just a single one of them. “The joke’s on you because I don’t care that much about Christmas anyway. This is just another Friday to me, not some grand gesture.”

“Good to know,” he teases her back, but his smile dims just a little and his eyes lose some of that playful spark she loves so much and she’s acutely aware she’s being an asshole. She doesn’t mean to be, it’s just easier to deflect than to be vulnerable in any sort of way. “I’m glad you managed to schedule me in on one of your many Fridays though.”

Although he doesn’t seem to take it too personally she still softens, dropping her hands at her sides, “I’m sorry. I—” Clarke hesitates, finding his gaze before looking off to the side again. “I’m kind of bad at this. I wish I wasn’t, but I am. So, maybe...” She cringes, knowing she’s being a coward, but also knowing she won’t be able to make herself physically say it until she manages to relax, and nothing would give her that comfort more than hearing it from him first, if they were doing it together. “Maybe you can tell me, and I can just agree.”

Bellamy lets out a huff of dark laughter, raising his eyebrows. “A pillow princess in every aspect of the word I see.”

“Come on,” she opposes vocally as she collects a handful of snow and aims it at his chest. It’s too cold in her bare fingers and barely has any impact on him since he seems to be both incapable of experiencing cold and is probably used to it after growing up in this place. She’s not sure she likes snow that much. “You _know_ that’s not true.”

He softens visibly, catching her hand before it drops back down completely. Some snow sticks to the black t he’s wearing under his stupid flannel, and all she wants to do is curl up in his arms, but she knows she doesn’t get that unless she braves through this first. Bellamy’s adam’s apple bobs up and down visibly, his eyes insistent on hers in a way that keeps her from looking away this time. “Clarke, whatever you want to hear I’ll tell you,” he almost pleads, his voice rough. “I mean, I’ve been trying to but—”

She squeezes her eyes shut briefly, realizing how stupid all of this is, how stupid she’s been all this time. “I keep cutting you off. I know.” She swallows hard, trying to get her mouth to be less dry, weaving her fingers with his. “But I came here,” Clarke starts, resolutely, finally finding her footing, praying to whatever is out there that he understands. “Not because of any bets. And not because of the snow. I came here because of you.”

Bellamy watches her for another second before he offers, quietly and just a little unsure, “Because you like me.”

Here goes nothing. “Amongst other things.”

His eyebrows jump, as if he’s surprised by her willingness to go from zero to a hundred in less than two sentences after months of lukewarm indifference. Slowly, a grin starts to split across his face. “Do you want me to say it? Really say it?”

She considers it. This big scary simple fact that could change everything. She reminds herself everything’s already changed, and denying it won’t make it hurt less if it changes again but this time for the worst. “Yeah,” Clarke encourages him, breathless.

Time seems to stand still for a moment as he places his free hand on her cold cheek, his words cracking her chest wide open, exposing it, filing it with a warm kind of relief she could never in a million years put into words. “I love you.”

Maybe this isn’t so hard, she realizes, leaning into his touch. “I love you too.”

“Happy Christmas,” he concludes, fully grinning by now, quiet excitement obviously coursing all throughout him, radiating off him. Bellamy moves just a little closer, squeezing her fingers with his. “You’re kinda romantic though, Clarke Griffin. Even if you don’t realize it.”

“Maybe I learned something from those movie sets after all,” she agrees, stepping just a bit nearer to his body heat, a challenge starting to spark in her eyes. “You know what I bet?”

Bellamy tries to stifle an amused smile, only half succeeding. Expectantly, “Well?”

She quickly leans up to peck his lips with hers. “That it’s warmer inside.”

His hand keeps her in place, leaning down to give her a real kiss, even though he’s laughing too much for it to be actually considered a good one. It’s okay, considering they have lots of time to make-up for it later. “Let’s find out.”

* * *

Later that weekend, Clarke wakes up to her phone pinging and buzzing itself into overdrive. She rubs her eyes before stretching, snuggling back into Bellamy’s chest as she reaches for her phone. She goes through the interview twice before he wakes up, tightening his arm around her waist. 

He presses a kiss against her shoulder before leaning his chin there, watching her phone screen. Josie is wearing a tiny little red sequin dress, her hair freshly highlighted, and although she’s usually almost two cup sizes smaller than Clarke, her push up bra seems to be doing the work of the Gods. “Wow,” Bellamy says, voice hoarse with sleep, completely stunned. “That’s kind of freaky.”

Although Clarke isn’t one of the ‘not like one of the other girls’ girls and she’d hoped she wasn’t too run of the mill, she definitely did not expect she’d be this easy to imitate. Josie is doing a kickass job at it, her mannerisms creepily similar, no trace of her accent, her beauty mark completely identical to Clarke’s. Maybe those acting challenge TikToks were on to something. 

“Wait till you check this out,” Clarke snorts, fastforwarding a few minutes. The interviewer starts asking about the ‘new’ tattoo on her ankle, _Sanctum_ in a fancy script font. When she first got it, Josie told her this whole story about finding a sanctuary within herself while travelling to Thailand, but Russell accidentally told Clarke it was the name of the tattoo shop she got it in, trying to impress one of the artists while she was supposed to be in a rehab clinic in Spain. Clarke had not asked for an elaboration.

“I got a matching one,” Gabriel starts, teasingly, obviously trying to help Josie along by turning it into a joke but the look on her face remains blank. Suddenly Josie turns, leaning up on her tiptoes to grab a hold of the lapels of his maroon colored suit jacket, pressing her mouth against his. The kiss doesn’t last very long, but it’s just long enough to get the cameras to flash even more furiously than before.. It’s all just — very smooth, the little satisfied smirk that briefly splits across Josie’s face not escaping Clarke’s attention. 

When Josie pulls back she’s giggling as if embarrassed, and although Gabriel is still staring at her with wide eyes, she uses her thumb to wipe some lipstick off the corner of his mouth. “Don’t be silly, babe.” She turns her beaming smile back on the camera, making the mistake of twirling a strand of her new lob around her finger. “Anyway, where were we?”

Clarke pauses the video, tossing her phone back onto his nightstand and Bellamy huffs, thoroughly unimpressed. “That was her best cover story?”

“No. Josie’s a better actress than that.” And has a great eye for detail — she didn’t cover up that tattoo on purpose. Not that Clarke can really complain. Technically Josie is doing her a favor. “She just saw an opportunity and took it.” Clarke moves over to the side enough so she can roll over to face him, brushing a few long curls away from his eyes. “I _also_ think she secretly enjoys making my life difficult.”

He closes his eyes again under her touch, still sounding sleepy. “Are you upset?”

“No, “she answers honestly, even though that’s the most dangerous answer of the two options. “I kind of wish I was, just a little, but I’m not.” She offers him a close-lipped smile when he squints at her through half-lidded eyes, running her fingers down the bridge of his nose. “I don’t worry as much when I’m with you.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“It is,” Clarke agrees, pushing against his chest to make him roll over onto his back, swinging one leg over his waist so she’s straddling him. She leans down to press a kiss to the dip in his chin, finding it easier to make these confessions to anywhere but his eyes. “But it’s also terrifying.”

“You can always just pretend it was one big publicity stunt.”

“Or I’ll just fake date Gabriel for a few months and then make Notes App statement about our mutual break-up.”

“ _Or_ ,” he starts, squeezing the back of her thighs, “you just own up to conspiring to commit identity fraud with a known criminal and call it a temporary lapse in judgement.”

Clarke stares down at him with a teasing smile, hands on his chest to steady herself. “You want me to ruin my spotless reputation, huh?”

“It was already ruined before me,” he corrects her, throwing his head back on the pillow with a half-hearted roll of his eyes. “I just don’t wanna be in the shadow of a 6’2 multitalented greek God for the next six months.” He sighs a little, being dramatic as always. “Think of my heart, Clarke.”

She leans down to nip at his jaw, playful. “He’s not really my type, you know. I like something a bit more basic.”

“Mhmm?” He wonders, only half invested, obviously enjoying the kisses she’s pressing down his throat, his eyes fluttering closed again.. 

“Yeah,” Clarke agrees, kissing the hollow of his throat, “I like history teachers with dark hair,”, the sharp jut of his collarbone, “and broad shoulders who are entirely too intelligent for my good,” and the bronzed skin pulled taut over his shoulder, “and have never even entertained the thought of having a twitter account.” She draws her face back up to his, smiling down at him. 

He leans up to kiss her briefly, hand on her neck to pull her down enough to meet him in the middle. “I might know a guy.”

“Good,” she breathes against his lips before reconnecting their mouths, her hands weaving into his hair as his thumb moves over her pulsepoint, the other low on her back, breathing heavily into each other. 

For a while, she gets lost in it. And then her anxiety creeps back in, making her pull back from him with an apologetic look, raking his eyes with hers. “I know it won’t be easy. There’ll be a lot of memes. _A lot_ of them. And people will have unfair standards for your face, and your body. Like, they’ll make lists of surgeries you should have to look more like they want you to look. And they’ll probably start screaming at you on the internet you don’t deserve me. Or they’ll scream at me that I don’t deserve you.” A nervous smile breaks across her face, half a chuckle escaping from her lips. “Racism or misogyny, whatever is in that week,” she adds, half jokingly before deflating, eyes softening on his as she swallows tightly. “But if you’re truly okay with all of that, if you can be me in spite of it all, I want to do this.” Silence wraps around them for a moment, and her insecurities start to creep back in through the cracks in her armor. She notices her fingers have been digging into his shoulders so she quickly retracts them, resting them on top of her thighs, looking off to the side. “You don’t have to give me an answer right now. I won’t be leaving until after New Years so—”

“Clarke,” he snaps, without any real heat, taking both of her hands in his. “Shut up. They can make however many lists they want, you’re at the top of mine.”

Despite herself, despite trying her very best to smother the grin trying to break it’s way across her face, she’s smiling at him like a stupid idiot, trying to stifle her laughter. “That was really corny. Like Hallmark Christmas movie _corny_.” 

He pulls one of their hands up to her shoulder to fix the strap of her tanktop before pressing his lips to the back of her hand. “That’s why I leave the romance to you.”

It’s kind of sweet. Even if he’s an insane dork and it’s corny as hell. It _is_ Christmas time. She smiles, genuine this time, not just the byproduct of stifled laughter. “You’re at the top of my list too.”

Bellamy lets go of her hands to band his arms around her back, pulling her down on top of him. He kisses the tip of her nose before giving her mouth a wary look. “For the record I am going to be doing a birthmark check every time you’ve left the room for more than two minutes for the sake of my own sanity.”

“Don’t worry, Gabriel’s not her usual type. If he ever finalizes his restraining order, Murphy is the one who should be worried.”

“I don’t know if I should be offended or relieved.”

“ _Definitely_ relieved. You have a girlfriend already.”

“And I heard she has more than six million twitter followers.”

“Way out of your league.”

“Absolutely.”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

He hums, brushing down the hair on the back of her head before trailing down between her shoulder blades and down her spine. 

“I don’t really like snow that much.”

“Not a dealbreaker.” His hand flattens over the small of her back as he clears his throat. “I have a Twitter account from when I was in college. I still occasionally use it to spy on what memes are making the rounds amongst my students. It has thirteen followers.”

She snorts against his jaw. “Not a dealbreaker.”

“Josie’s a terrible dancer. I’ve seen some of her TikToks against my will.”

“Against your will?” Clarke adjusts her head on his shoulder to get a better look at his face, one of her eyebrows cocked.

“The aforementioned Twitter account. Kids can be mean.”

A surprised huff of laughter escapes from her throat. “That’s not a dealbreaker. That’s just called having eyes.”

It’s quiet for a moment before he clears his throat, softly piping up, “You really don’t like snow?”

“You mean you’re not willing to move to LA and be my trophy husband?” She wonders, amusement laced with her tone. 

Bellamy playfully slaps her ass as if chasitizing her. “I think we can limit it to holidays and long weekends. The rest of the snow season we’ll just have to stay inside.”

Clarke kisses the underside of his jaw, trailing her fingers down his bicep. “I bet we can manage that.”


End file.
